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This chapter explores the role of doctrinal adaptability during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The US Army’s conventional doctrine of AirLand Battle developed after the Vietnam War rejected counterinsurgency as a mission, which made the army poorly prepared for the recent wars. In Afghanistan, the army rapidly adapted its civil affairs doctrine to address the challenges of security and reconstruction, and ultimately established new provincial reconstruction teams. But the broader processes of adapting army doctrine for counterinsurgency took more than four years and a remarkable confluence of events and determined individuals—including General David Petraeus—in order to circumvent the army’s normal processes for developing doctrine and produce an entirely new manual in the midst of a failing war.

In this final chapter, the authors recommend ways to improve the adaptability of the US military so it is prepared to prevail in the wars of the 21st century. To improve adaptability in doctrine, the recommendations include adopting adaptation as a principle of war, integrating free play in training exercises, and training under sustained analog conditions. To improve adaptability in technology, the recommendations include strengthening rapid-adaptation organizations, chartering a rapid-adaptation skunkworks, and sponsoring an annual rapid-adaptation competition. To improve adaptability in leadership, the recommendations include evaluating adaptability in annual fitness reports, strengthening mission command, reforming professional military education, and sending more officers to advanced civil schooling. The authors also recommend that the Department of Defense expand its focus on talent management, getting younger voices in front of senior leaders, increasing the role of combatant commanders in ensuring adaptability, and chartering a Defense Adaptation Board.

This chapter argues that it will be increasingly difficult for the US military to predict and adapt to the character of its future conflicts, because of growing strategic uncertainty, the addition of two new domains of warfare (outer space and cyberspace), and the scale and increasing speed of change. The gap between predicted wars and actual wars—what the authors call the adaptation gap—is likely to continue to grow. The adaptability that the US military will need to bridge that growing gap will become ever more important, even as it becomes ever more difficult.

This chapter explores the role of doctrine in military adaptation and how it prepares commanders and soldiers for the fog and friction of the battlefield. It argues that doctrine must remain flexible and open to change through a constant iterative process of improvement. Effective adaptation of doctrine also requires input from all levels of the chain of command and the ability to rapidly disseminate changes throughout the force. The chapter illustrates successful and failed adaptability of military doctrine using case studies of the French and German armies in World War II and the Egyptian and Israeli armies during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

This chapter argues that the US military is not adaptable enough for the challenges of future warfare discussed in Chapter 9. In the area of doctrine, excessive amounts hinder creativity and flexibility, revision processes are too slow, and flawed training provides too little opportunity to practice adaptability. In the area of technology, few of the problems identified in Chapter 6 have been addressed, because of the structural tension between the services and the combatant commanders, and the broken acquisition system. In the area of leadership, adaptability is hindered by the generational legacy of the recent wars, problems with the system of professional military education, and a growing tendency toward risk aversion that threatens the principle of mission command.

This chapter explores the role of technological adaptability during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the tactical level, it examines how soldiers in Iraq developed “hillbilly armor” to try to protect their vulnerable vehicles from roadside bombs, and how Apache helicopters were successfully adapted to conduct close air support missions in Afghanistan. It also argues, however, that technological adaptability at the institutional level involved disastrous failures. In Iraq, virtually all senior Pentagon officials repeatedly resisted providing adequate numbers of life-saving vehicles called MRAPs to deployed soldiers facing grave threats from improvised explosive devices. And in Afghanistan, the army stubbornly supported its poorly performing intelligence analysis system, called DCGS-A, for more than a decade, despite overwhelming evidence that commercially available software from Palantir would work better and save the lives of more soldiers.

The US military plans and thinks incessantly about wars and conflict—yet, like many organizations, it inevitably fails to foresee what comes next. That means that it must be able to successfully adapt to unforeseen circumstances in order to prevail on the battlefield. This introduction identifies the central question of this book: Is the US military adaptable enough to prevail in the wars of the 21st century? In order to answer that question, Part I of the book defines the term adaptation, identifies the three critical components of wartime adaptability, and illustrates those components through historical examples. Part II assesses US military adaptability in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including some key failures that have not yet been widely addressed. Part III argues that the US military is not sufficiently adaptable for the future conflicts it may face, and offers many recommendations for improvement.

This chapter explores the role of technology in military adaptation, and the markedly different challenges of technological adaptability at the tactical and institutional levels. At the tactical level, technological adaptability requires leaders and soldiers to approach problems with creativity, manufacture solutions on the battlefield, and disseminate solutions rapidly across the force. At the institutional level, technological adaptability requires effective communication with soldiers on the battlefield, and overcoming bureaucratic hurdles within established acquisition processes. The chapter includes case studies of French tank development during World War I and US Army tank development and battlefield modifications during World War II in Europe.

This chapter explores the role of leadership adaptability at the theater level during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It focuses on two stark cases of failure that had severe strategic consequences. In Iraq, General George Casey proved unable to adapt to the reality of an ever-worsening war, despite clear evidence that the trajectory of the war was veering sharply downward, and never questioned the fundamental assumptions of his strategy. In Afghanistan, General David McKiernan did not understand the changing character of the Afghan war or the shifting political dynamics among his superiors in Washington, and became the first US senior commander relieved for unsatisfactory performance since the Korean War.

This chapter explores the role of leadership in military adaptation, which may be the most important factor of all. Adaptable tactical leaders must rapidly assess the battlefield and identify the need for change, remain willing to abandon accepted procedures when required, and candidly advocate for organizational change when needed. At the theater level, adaptive leaders face more challenges in identifying the need for change. They need to actively seek out ideas from throughout the chain of command, and to lead rapid battlefield change within their formations. The chapter examines the successful tactical adaptability of Captain John Abizaid during the 1983 invasion of Grenada and the failed tactical adaptability of Lieutenant Colonel Robert McDade in 1965 during the Vietnam War. It also examines the successful theater adaptability of Field Marshall William Slim during the Burma campaign of World War II, and the failed theater adaptability of General William Westmoreland in Vietnam War.

This chapter explores the role of leadership adaptability at the tactical level during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It examines how Colonel Sean MacFarland and his US Army brigade successfully adapted to conditions in Ramadi, and dramatically reduced the very high levels of violence in this critical Iraqi city in 2006. It also examines the remarkable adaptability of Captain Mark Nutsch and his 12-man team of US Army Special Forces soldiers, known as the Horse Soldiers, during the opening weeks of the war in Afghanistan in 2001. Their strikingly creative efforts helped achieve a critical strategic objective in the campaign to remove the Taliban from power.

Originally, the Taliban were also poorly organized. Under pressure from 2009 onwards, they had to complement their trademark polycentric organization with centralized structures, which enabled great coordination in the battlefield and unity of command.

The Taliban’s tactics were originally quite clumsy, but were able to evolve towards asymmetric tactics with the help of foreign advisers from Iran and Pakistan. Mines became the main weapon in the arsenal of the Taliban.

The Miran Shah Shura predated the Quetta Shura, but only in 2007 did it start to drift away and become more and more autonomous. The main grudge held against the Quetta Shura was the concentration of power in the hands of southern Taliban. The new Peshawar Shura, established in 2005, also opposed the southern bias of the Quetta Shura and sought to provide an alternative center of Taliban power in the east.

From 2014 the Quetta Shura started recovering influence among the Taliban, mostly due to its ability to re-direct funding away from other centers of power. Still the Quetta Shura remained divided internally, and unable to act coherently in order to exploit the opportunities that the withdrawal of western combat troops offered.

The US surge in southern Afghanistan in 2009-11 put the Quetta Shura under heavy stress, at a time when the Shuras of Miran Shah and Peshawar were trying to expand at its expense. The Quetta Shura started to appear as ineffective, and donors started redirecting their finances at the two other shuras. A period of decline had begun.